Ever since the president’s election blew up Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s plans for Season 20, the series has seemed unsure of what to do about him.

This post contains spoilers for South Park Season 21, Episode 10: “Splatty Tomato.”

On Wednesday night, South Park delivered a clear, if obvious message: _Donald Trump is a menace. But he also isn’t going away anytime soon, thanks largely to a small, vocal group of people. Not all of this season’s installments have been this transparent in their messaging, so Wednesday’s episode earned points for clarity—but it also demonstrated, as other episodes have, that even a year after his election, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker remain unsure of the best way to deal with the president.

Last November, Stone and Parker—like most of the country—realized that they had made a grave miscalculation. The two had written their show’s post-election episode on the assumption that Hillary Clinton would be the victor Tuesday night, necessitating a frantic rejiggering one day before the installment was scheduled to air. For the rest of that season, South Park visibly struggled to figure out what to do with its Mr. Garrison-Trump hybrid character, one the show had obviously intended to be short-lived.

Then, in the lead-up to Season 21, Parker and Stone waffled about whether their usually topical show would even address the president—who dominates the national conversation, day in and day out. The season itself ended up taking a few shots at Trump-inspired plotlines, none of which hit particularly hard. And then came Wednesday’s season finale, which made one thing crystal clear: Stone and Parker are exhausted by Trump. Or, at least, the town of South Park itself clearly wants him to go away.

The problem? The real Trump isn’t going anywhere (yet), which means South Park can’t opt out of satirizing him if it hopes to stay relevant.

Wednesday’s A-plot centered on a parody of Stranger Things and It, in which Mr. Garrison—referred to this week only as “the president”—was the monster. While the adults try to figure out how to get rid of him, the kids set out on foot into the woods to hunt Garrison down. One South Park family, the Whites, remain loyal to Mr. Garrison, insisting that Clinton would have been worse. They insist that no one cares about their thoughts, needs, or desires. Eventually, it’s Ike—Kyle’s adopted Canadian brother—who dresses up as a Mountie, manages to take Garrison into his custody, and drags him back into town on a sled pulled by a Newfoundland. Unfortunately, Garrison escapes—leading to a foreboding conclusion in which one man asks, “We can’t destroy him, can we?”

Randy’s reply? “I don’t know. I guess it’s up to . . . the Whites.”

Like I said, it’s not a particularly veiled or nuanced message. But it also speaks to how haunted the series has been by Trump ever since he took office. In the past, South Park was not wedded to political satire. In fact, it was a relatively rare occurrence on the show. Trump, however, has consumed the national conversation to such a degree that not talking about him can make any satirical program feel out of touch; just ask late-night hosts, whose field has seen a similar dynamic play out, buoying the topical Stephen Colbert over the more fun-and-games oriented Jimmy Fallon. Historically, most of Parker and Stone’s best work had nothing to do with politics—but, now, that’s not always an option. And Stone and Parker’s traditional “both sides are wrong” approach to humor is also no longer compatible with the national climate.

This season has been littered with weak attempts at both-sides-ism that simply don’t hold water. Take, for instance, the premiere episode, which tried to invoke the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia without taking a clear stance on who was right. This week, we got mockery of a desperate leader reeling from poor approval ratings, but also this argument from Eric Cartman’s soon-to-be ex-girlfriend Heidi: “If you always make yourself the victim, you can justify being awful.” (She made this comment during her breakup speech, but this might not be the time to make that argument about victimhood.) Similarly, the series’s ongoing mockery of the covert romantic relationship between P.C. Principal and his subordinate, Strong Woman—which also got resolved this week with a visual gag involving several people vomiting—also feels misplaced.

At every turn, the finale—like the rest of the season—refuses to take a side. Even as the series quietly explains why it hasn’t killed Garrison off—joking about killing the president is a big no-no, a police officer tells South Park residents this week—Stone and Parker also had to slip in the argument that Kathy Griffin, a comedian who has been ostracized for doing just that, was never funny to begin with.

All of this makes Randy’s final shrug all the more disappointing. At this point, Randy appears to be an avatar for Stone and Parker themselves: dogged by a president he never wanted, but totally at a loss as to what to do about him now that he’s here.

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